King was struck down by a sniper at age 39 as he stepped onto a balcony at the Lorraine Hotel for a breath of air during a labour strike in Memphis.

His assassin, James Earl Ray, a white man obsessed with hatred for blacks who hoped he would be paid by segregationists for his deed, had stalked him from city to city across the Deep South until he had his chance. He was convicted and died in jail in 1998.